


In The Works

by ShaleShark



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (Pun partially intended), Other, Rating will change winky face, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 13:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19442578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaleShark/pseuds/ShaleShark
Summary: You're a craftsperson struggling to make a living in Ebott when the Monsters resurface, reshaping your very world. And against what may be your better judgement, you find yourself inexplicably drawn to a certain fire elemental....





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Undertale? In *my* 2019? It's more likely than you think.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It beginneth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: Hi y'all! I've been away from this for a while, but I love it and have so many plans for it. The first of which is switching from past to present tense. I just like it better that way, and I'm not sure why I started with past in the first place. Okay! Here we go (again).

Ebott. A town rich in folklore, and... well. That’s about it. There isn’t much to the place. Most of its buildings are old, there's nothing special about the culture, the economy is… alright, you suppose, and most importantly, people have been moving away at an increasingly steady rate.

It's the mountain’s fault. Eight children. Eight children have disappeared in the mountain in the past hundred years. Local legend says it's cursed, that those who climb it are doomed to never return.

But that means leases are cheap. And as a young adult starting your own business, that's exactly what you needed, especially at the size required for your workspace. Mostly, it's the different sections at the back where you work with wood, metal, glass, stone, fabric, whatever you can get your hands on. Then there's the front of the shop where you display your finished pieces and accept items in need of repair. "In The Works," you call it, as does the nice (handmade, of course) sign above the front door. You pretty much exclusively make furniture now, but you hope to have the time and customer base for more decorative pieces eventually.

That doesn’t look likely. To say that business is slow would be an understatement; it's practically nonexistent. Sure, people leaving had made this possible...but now they keep leaving. This had been a bad idea. You're going to go broke and be dirt poor and live on the street. And you’ve only been here for two months. Fuck. But you still make your pieces, because what else is there to do? Besides, it's soothing. When you get into a rhythm, you can block out all of your thoughts and focus solely on the work.

You have to give yourself an off day every now and then, though, and you’ve decided that today you’ll climb Mount Ebott. You put no stock into the superstition surrounding it. You're certain it's dangerous, sure, but because of unstable ground, wild animals at the very most, and the fact that those who disappeared were literal children. Search parties came back just fine, didn’t they? Anyway, you’ve hiked mountains before. You’ll be careful. And you know that if you don’t leave the shop, you’ll work yourself to death.

Your walk is pretty uneventful, but pleasant all the same. The weather is nice, you get some photos of the view, and you don’t, y’know, die. It's rather peaceful, in fact. You could get used to doing this, if you don’t end up having to move to a more populated city where you can more easily beg for change oh god there go the bad thoughts. Ahem. After a few hours of hiking, you stop on a flat expanse of rock to eat lunch.

You throw your jacket on the ground (eh, you’ll wash it later) and sit down with your back resting against the mountain’s face, fishing the sweet sweet sustenance from your backpack. As you eat, you look out across the forest and fields ahead of you, and the little town, made miniature by the distance, off to the left.

You don’t want to have to leave. You like it here. Not the location, or the people, or any of the particulars of Ebott necessarily. But the freedom of living far from home, the feeling of adulthood that comes with owning your own business, that's what you like. You know you'd never get this chance again. The money, your family, your own common sense—wouldn’t allow it.

As you sit there, chewing a bite of sandwich and contemplating the terrifying concept that is the rapidly approaching future, everything goes white. Completely and utterly white. Panic rushes through you, a surging fire in your veins. You scramble to your feet, but don’t dare move since you can't see a goddamn thing. Even with your eyes screwed shut, it's impossibly bright.

What the hell. What the HELL. Your only solace is that it doesn’t seem to be hurting you, although you figure that might just be the adrenaline and—surprise!—you're actually dying. Haha FUCK. The flash lasts for a few seconds, each of which stretches on for hours, and then it's over. You blink, reassuring yourself that yeah, you can still see (and feel and hear and all the other things that come with being not dead), and then book it out of there, backpack hastily thrown on as you make your way back down much faster than was probably safe.

Luckily, you don’t fall too seriously in your rush (you do trip a couple of times, but the worst you get are scrapes). You get all the way back to town before you finally stop to rest, hands on your knees and gasping deep lungfuls of air. Only when you look up from this do you notice the crowd. Seems like the whole town (all, what, fifty people?) is out, whispering to each other and looking towards Mt. Ebott.

A few run up to you to ask what happened. You stand there for a long moment, dumbstruck, before stuttering out an “I don’t know.” They look disappointed. “There was a big… flash of light. Uh. I don’t know,” you repeat, realizing that you have no more to say.

Oh, you’d come to know soon enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Monsters. They’d been at the center of several of the legends. But god, you'd never thought…. And the stories got it all wrong, anyway. They paint the monsters as bloodthirsty, well, monsters. Though you suppose that isn’t too surprising. History is written by the victors, and all that.

The monsters were led by, of all things, a human child: Frisk, who quickly became the ambassador between the two races.

The few months following their return to the surface were hectic, to say the least. There was the issue of telling the world monsters actually existed, and learning the true history of the war and their subsequent magical imprisonment. Then there were things like figuring out currency exchange and housing for the former residents of the Underground.

The latter, funnily enough, wasn’t a huge problem. Thanks to all those humans who moved away from the “cursed” mountain, and the monster population actually being pretty damn small, Ebott itself had enough space to accommodate everyone.

Monsters set up businesses in the abandoned retail space around your shop. They moved into the houses and apartment buildings left empty by the same exodus that had caused you to move there. And it seems like Frisk and the monster king (they have a king, it turns out) are doing a stellar job at helping their transition onto the surface run smoothly.

And you? You're thriving. Ebott had become something of a tourist destination practically overnight. People flocked there to see the mountain and its inhabitants for themselves. You don’t know how you feel about the monsters being gawked at like zoo animals, but you like to give people the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to innocent curiosity. You're extremely curious yourself, after all. But you hold yourself back from looking for too long or practically interrogating monsters on the street like some of the tourists do. You are a local, goddammit.

Little souvenirs from your shop are popular with the visitors. You lose track of how many models of the mountain you make, but people seem to love your knickknacks no matter what they are, as soon as they see the little “Handmade in Ebott” engraved on them.

You like the monsters. You’ve been coexisting with them for about three-ish months now. But it strikes you one day as you look around at your shop, filled with humans, that you haven’t really interacted with any aside from things like a polite nod on the street or ordering a spider-themed coffee from the cute bakery that opened up nearby.

That isn’t out of the ordinary for you; you aren’t a complete introvert, but you also don’t go out of your way to meet people. It's just that you spend most of your time in your shop, running it during the day and crafting at night. Plus eating and sleeping and everything, and that's all done in your little apartment above your shop. And okay, maybe you’ve leaned a bit too far into the whole “giving them space” thing into “practically avoiding them” territory. Shit, you hope they don’t think you dislike them.

Anyway. You don’t really have friends here. You’d made some in trade school, sure, but hadn’t kept up with them afterwards. Things happen, people drift apart, and you're cool with that. But now that you don’t have to worry about losing your business, you could afford the luxury of feeling… lonely.

“Excuse me?” A slightly impatient voice snaps you out of your thoughts. Someone wanting to check out. Right, shit, you're working. With a sheepish apology, you ring them up. The customer leaves with their purchase, seeming to forget about your lapse in concentration in favor of showing off their mini metal replica of the town’s old “Welcome to Ebott” sign.

You check the clock. Not much longer until close. You resolve to get to know some of your neighbors, and that there’s no time like the present.


End file.
